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Abstract
The cellular prion protein, termed PrPC, is a glycoprotein abundantly expressed in brains and to a lesser extent in non-neuronal tissues including lungs. It was reported that PrPC is expressed by lung epithelial cells in mice, and that it may play a protective role against lethal infection with influenza A viruses (IAVs). This may occur by regulating Cu content and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, eventually reducing oxidative stress in infected lungs. Antioxidative therapeutics have been demonstrated to protect mice from lethal infection with IAVs. Therefore, PrPC might be a new target molecule for development of IAV therapeutics. Here, we introduce the antiviral mechanism of PrPC against IAV infection and discuss perspectives of PrPC-targeting therapeutics against IAV infection.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
This study was financially supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant numbers 26293212, 15K15380, 17K19661 and 16K10029, and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (Brain Protein Aging and Dementia Control) grant numbers 15H01560 and 17H05701 from MEXT. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.
Ethical conduct of research
The authors state that all animal experiments were conducted after the Ethics Committee of Animal Care and Experimentation of Tokushima University approved this study (approval number T27-86).